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In a nutshell.
France is pretty fucked.
They elected Macron because he wasn't Le Pen, not because he was liked.
He claims to be a man of the people, but an ex merchant banker who went to the same schools as pretty much every other French president is not a man of the people.
France has some problems, massive public sector spending that he needs to get down, so that means putting a lot of people out of work, but with a stubborn 10% unemployment rate, that is not going to go down well.
It has a welfare state it cant really afford anymore, low retirement age, pretty decent pensions, decent free healthcare. But you try telling people they're going to be worse off than the previous generation, it's not an easy sell.
The established left and right parties have been hammered, he controls pretty much everything, so if the people don't agree with his new laws, the only thing to do is kick off.
And approval for these protests is stupidly high, even Thatcher bottled it over the poll tax when rioting started and the usually conservative middle class agreed with the rioters.
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